PART III
“LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY”
Our narrative of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries thus far has been full of intrigue, dynastic rivalry, and colonial competition. We have sat with red-robed cardinals in council to exalt the monarch of France; we have witnessed the worldwide wars by which Great Britain won and lost vast imperial domains; we have followed the thundering march of Frederick’s armies through the Germanies, wasted with war; but we have been blind indeed if the glare of bright helmets and the glamour of courtly diplomacy have hidden from our eyes a phenomenon more momentous than even the growth of Russia or the conquest of New France. It is the rise of the bourgeoisie.
Driven on by insatiable ambition, not content to be lords of the world of business, with ships and warehouses for castles and with clerks for retainers, the bourgeoisie have placed their lawyers in the royal service, their learned men in the academies, their economists at the king’s elbow, and with restless energy they push on to shape state and society to their own ends. In England they have already helped to dethrone kings and have secured some hold on Parliament, but on the Continent their power and place is less advanced.
For the eighteenth century is still the grand age of monarchs, who take Louis XIV as the pattern of princely power and pomp. “Benevolent despots” they are, these monarchs meaning well to govern their people with fatherly kindness. But their plans go wrong and their reforms fall flat, while the bourgeoisie become self-conscious and self-reliant, and rise up against the throne of the sixteenth Louis in France. It is the bourgeoisie that start the revolutionary cry of “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,” and it is this cry in the throats of the masses which sends terror to the hearts of nobles and kings. Desperately the old order–the old régime–defends itself. First France, then all Europe, is affected. Revolutionary wars convulse the Continent. Never had the world witnessed wars so disastrous, so bloody.
Yet the triumph of the bourgeoisie is not assured. The Revolution has been but one battle in the long war between the rival aristocracies of birth and of business–a war in which peasants and artisans now give their lives for illusory dreams of “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,” now fight their feudal lords, and now turn on their pretended liberators, the bourgeoisie. For already it begins to dawn on the dull masses that “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” are chiefly for their masters.
The old regime, its decay, the rise of the bourgeoisie, the disappointment of the common people,–these are the bold landmarks on which the student must fix his attention, while in the following chapters we sketch the condition of Europe in the eighteenth century, and trace the course of the French Revolution, the career of Napoleon, and the restoration of “law and order” under Metternich.
CHAPTER XIII
EUROPEAN SOCIETY IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
AGRICULTURE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
[Sidenote: General Backwardness]
If some “Rip Van Winkle” of the sixteenth century could have slept for two centuries to awake in 1750, he would have found far less to marvel at in the common life of the people than would one of us. Much of the farming, even of the weaving, buying, and selling, was done just as it had been done centuries before; and the great changes that were to revolutionize the life and work of the people were as yet hardly dreamed of. In fact, there was so much in common between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, that the reader who has already made himself familiar with the manor and the gild, as described in Chapter II, will find himself quite at home in the “old regime,” as the order of things in the eighteenth century is now termed.
One might still see the countless little agricultural villages and manor houses nestling among the hills or dotting the plains, surrounded by green fields and fringed with forest or wasteland. The simple villagers still cultivated their strips in the common fields in the time-honored way, working hard for meager returns. A third of the land stood idle every year; it often took a whole day merely to scratch the surface of a single acre with the rude wooden plow then in use; cattle were killed off in the autumn for want of good hay; fertilizers were only crudely applied, if at all; many a humble peasant was content if his bushel of seed brought him three bushels of grain, and was proud if his fatted ox weighed over four hundred pounds, though a modern farmer would grumble at results three or four times as good.
[Sidenote: “Gentlemen Farmers” and “Husbandry”] [Sidenote: “Rotation of Crops”]
There were some enterprising and prosperous landowners who used newer and better methods, and even wrote books about “husbandry,” as agriculture was called. The Dutch, especially, learned to cultivate their narrow territory carefully, and from them English farmers learned many secrets of tillage. They grew clover and “artificial grasses”–such as rye–for their cattle, cultivated turnips for winter fodder, tilled the soil more thoroughly, used fertilizers more diligently, and even learned how to shift their crops from field to field according to a regular plan, so that the soil would not lose its fertility and would not have to be left idle or “fallow” every third year.
[Sidenote: Survival of Primitive Methods]
These new methods were all very fine for “gentlemen farmers,” but for the average peasant the old “open-field” system was an effective barrier to progress. He could not plant new crops on his strips in the grain fields, for custom forbade it; he could not breed his cows scientifically, while they ran in with the rest of the village cattle. At best he could only work hard and pray that his cows would not catch contagion from the rest, and that the weeds from his neighbor’s wheat- patch might not spread into his own, for between such patches there was neither wall nor fence.
[Sidenote: Survival of Serfdom]
[Sidenote: Sorry Condition of the Peasantry]
Primitive methods were not the only survivals of manorial life. Actual serfdom still prevailed in most of the countries of Europe except France [Footnote: Even in France, some serfdom still survived.] and England, and even in these countries nominal freedom lifted the peasantry but little above the common lot. It is true, indeed, that countless differences in the degree and conditions of servitude existed between Russians and Frenchmen, and even between peasants in the same country or village. The English or French plowman, perhaps, might not be sold to fight for other countries like the Hessians, nor could he be commanded to marry an undesired bride, as were of the tenants of a Russian nobleman. But in a general way we may say that all the peasants of Europe suffered from much the same causes. With no voice in making the laws, they were liable to heavy fines or capital punishment for breaking the laws. Their advice was not asked when taxes were levied or apportioned, but upon them fell the heaviest burdens of the state.
It was vexatious to pay outrageous fees for the use of a lord’s mill, bridge, oven, or wine-press, to be haled to court for an imaginary offense, or to be called from one’s fields to war, or to work on the roads without pay. It was hard for the hungry serf to see the fat deer venturing into his very dooryard, and to remember that the master of the mansion house was so fond of the chase that he would not allow his game to be killed for food for vulgar plowmen.
But these and similar vexations sank into insignificance in comparison with the burdens of the taxes paid to lord, to church, and to king. In every country of Europe the peasants were taxed, directly or indirectly, for the support of the three pillars of the “old regime.” The form of such taxation in England differed widely from that in Hungary; in Sweden, from that in Spain. But beneath discrepancies of form, the system was essentially the same. Some idea of the triple taxation that everywhere bore so heavily upon the peasantry may be obtained from a brief resume of the financial obligations of an ordinary French peasant to his king, his Church, and his lord.
[Sidenote: Peasant Obligations to Landlord]
To the lord the serf owed often three days’ labor a week, in addition to stated portions of grain and poultry. In place of servile work the freeman paid a “quit-rent,” that is, a sum of money instead of the services which were considered to accompany the occupation of land. Double rent was paid on the death of the peasant, and, if the farm was sold, one-fifth of the price went to the lord. Sometimes, however, a freeman held his land without quit-rent, but still had numerous obligations which had survived from medieval times, such as the annual sum paid for a “military protection” which he neither demanded nor received.
[Sidenote: Peasant Obligation to Church]
The second obligation was to the church–the tithe or tenth, which usually amounted every year to a twelfth or a fifteenth of the gross produce of the peasant’s land.
[Sidenote: Peasant Obligations to King and State]
Heaviest of all were the taxes levied by the king. The _taille_, or land tax, was the most important. The amount was not fixed, but was supposed to be proportional to the value of the peasant’s land and dwelling. In practice the tax-collectors often took as much as they could get. and a shrewd peasant would let his house go to pieces and pretend to be utterly destitute in order that the assessors might not increase the valuation of his property.
The other direct taxes were the poll tax, _i.e._, a certain sum which everybody alike must pay, and the income tax, usually a twentieth part of the income. Finally, there were indirect taxes, such as the salt _gabelle_. Thus, in certain provinces every person had to buy seven pounds of salt a year from the government salt-works at a price ten times its real value. Road-making, too, was the duty of the peasant, and the _corvée_, or labor on roads, often took several weeks in a year.
[Sidenote: Burden of Taxation on Peasants]
All these burdens–dues to the lord, tithes to the church, taxes to the king–left the peasant but little for himself. It is so difficult to get exact figures that we can put no trust in the estimate of a famous writer that dues, tithes, and taxes absorbed over four-fifths of the French peasant’s produce: nevertheless, we may be sure that the burden was very great. In a few favored districts of France and England farmers were able to pay their taxes and still live comfortably. But elsewhere the misery of the people was such as can hardly be imagined. With the best of harvests they could barely provide for their families, and a dry summer or long winter would bring them to want. There was only the coarsest of bread–and little of that; meat was a luxury; and delicacies were for the rich. We read how starving peasants in France tried to appease their hunger with roots and herbs, and in hard times succumbed by thousands to famine. One-roomed mud huts with leaky thatched roofs, bare and windowless, were good enough dwellings for these tillers of the soil. In the dark corners of the dirt-floors lurked germs of pestilence and death. Fuel was expensive, and the bitter winter nights must have found many a peasant shivering supperless on his bed of straw.
True, the gloom of such conditions was relieved here and there by a prosperous village or a well-to-do peasant. But, speaking in a general way, the sufferings of the poorer European peasants and serfs can hardly be exaggerated. It was they who in large part had paid for the wars, theaters, palaces, and pleasures of the courts of Europe.
COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
[Sidenote: Growth of Towns]
Let us now turn our eyes from the country to the city, for in the towns are to be found the bourgeoisie, the class in which we are most interested. The steady expansion of commerce and industry during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had been attended by a remarkable development of town life. Little villages had grown, until in 1787 there were 78 towns of over 10,000 inhabitants each. London, the greatest city in Europe, had increased in population from about half a million in 1685 to over a million in 1800. Paris was at least half as large; Amsterdam was a great city; and several German towns like Hamburg, Bremen, and Frankfort were important trading centers.
The towns had begun to lose some of their medieval characteristics. They had spread out beyond their cramping walls; roomy streets and pleasant squares made the newer sections more attractive. The old fortifications, no longer needed for protection, served now as promenades. City thoroughfares were kept cleaner, sometimes well paved with cobbles; and at night the feeble but cheerful glow of oil street- lamps lessened the terrors of the belated burgher who had been at the theater or listened to protracted debates at the great town hall.
[Sidenote: Industry Gild Regulation]
The life of the town was nourished by industry and commerce. Industry in the eighteenth century meant far more than baking bread, making clothes, cobbling shoes, and fashioning furniture for use in the town; it meant the production on a large scale of goods to sell in distant places,–cloth, clocks, shoes, beads, dishes, hats, buttons, and what not. Many of these articles were still manufactured under the regulations of the old craft gilds. For although the gild system was pretty well broken up in England, it still maintained its hold on the Continent. In France the division of crafts had become so complicated that innumerable bickerings arose between cobblers’ gilds and shoemakers’ gilds, between watch-makers and clock-makers. In Germany conditions were worse. The gilds, now aristocratic and practically hereditary corporations, used their power to prevent all competition, to keep their apprentices and journeymen working for little or nothing, to insure high profits, and to prevent any technical improvements which might conceivably injure them. “A hatter who improved his wares by mixing silk with the wool was attacked by all the other hatters; the inventor of sheet lead was opposed by the plumbers; a man who had made a success in print-cloths was forced to return to antiquated methods by the dyers.”
[Sidenote: Government Regulation of Industry: Mercantilism]
To gild regulation was added government regulation. It will be remembered that many seventeenth-century statesmen had urged their kings to make laws for the greater prosperity of industry, and that Colbert had given the classic expression in France to the mercantilist idea that wealth could be cultivated by regulating and encouraging manufactures. In order that French dyers might acquire a reputation for thorough work, he issued over three hundred articles of instruction for the better conduct of the dyeing business. In an age when unscrupulous English merchants were hurting the market with poorly woven fabrics, French weavers were given careful orders about the quality of the thread, the breadth of the cloth, and the fineness of the weave. It is said that in 1787 the regulations for French manufactures filled eight volumes in quarto; and other governments, while less thorough, were equally convinced of the wisdom of such a policy.
The mercantilist was not content with making rules for established industries. In justice to him it should be explained that he was anxious to plant new trades. Privileges, titles of nobility, exemption from taxation, generous grants of money, and other favors were accorded to enterprising business men who undertook to introduce new branches of manufacture.
In general, however, the efforts of such mercantilists as Colbert have been adversely criticized by economists. The regulations caused much inconvenience and loss to many manufacturers, and the privileges granted to new enterprises often favored unstable and unsuitable industries at the expense of more natural and valuable trades. It is impossible to estimate the value to France of Colbert’s pet industries, and equally impossible to see what would have happened had industry been allowed free rein. But we must not entirely condemn the system simply because its faults are so obvious and its benefits so hard to ascertain.
[Sidenote: Restrictions on Commerce]
Commerce, like industry, was subject to restrictions and impeded by antiquated customs. Merchants traversing the country were hindered by poor roads; at frequent intervals they must pay toll before passing a knight’s castle, a bridge, or a town gate. Customs duties were levied on commerce between the provinces of a single kingdom. And the cost of transportation was thus made so high that the price of a cask of wine passing from the Orléanais to Normandy–two provinces in northwestern France–increased twenty-fold.
From our past study of the commercial and colonial wars of the eighteenth century, especially those between France and Great Britain, we have already learned that mercantilist ideas were still dominant in foreign commerce. We have noted the heavy protective tariffs which were designed to shut out foreign competition. We have discussed the Navigation Acts, by means of which England encouraged her ship-owners. We have also mentioned the absorption, by specially chartered companies, of the profits of the lucrative European trade with the Indies. The East India Company, the Hudson’s Bay Company, the Dutch East India Company, and the French _Compagnie des Indes_ were but a few famous examples of the chartered companies which still practically monopolized the trade of most non-European countries.
[Sidenote: Great Growth of Commerce]
Customs and companies may have been injurious in many respects, but commerce grew out of all bounds. The New World gave furs, timber, tobacco, cotton, rice, sugar, rum, molasses, coffee, dyes, gold, and silver, in return for negro slaves, manufactures, and Oriental wares; and the broad Atlantic highways were traversed by many hundreds of heavily laden ships. The spices, jewels, tea, and textiles of the Far East made rich cargoes for well-built East Indiamen. Important, too, was the traffic which occupied English and Dutch merchant fleets in the Baltic; and the flags of many nations were carried by traders coastwise along all the shores of Europe. Great Britain at the opening of the eighteenth century possessed a foreign commerce estimated at $60,000,000, and that of France was at least two-thirds as great. During the century the volume of commerce was probably more than quadrupled.
It is difficult to realize the tremendous importance of this expansion of commerce and industry. It had erected colonial empires, caused wars, lured millions of peasants from their farms, and built populous cities. But most important of all–it had given strength to the bourgeoisie.
[Sidenote: Rise of the Bourgeoisie]
Merchants, bankers, wholesalers, rich gild-masters, and even less opulent shopkeepers, formed a distinct “middle class,” between the privileged clergy and nobility on the one hand, and the oppressed peasant and artisan, or manual laborer, on the other. The middle class, often called by the French word _bourgeoisie_ because it dwelt in towns or _bourgs_, was strongest in England, the foremost commercial nation of Europe, was somewhat weaker in France, and very much weaker in less commercial countries, such as Germany, Austria, and Russia.
If the bourgeoisie was all-powerful in the world of business, it was influential in other spheres. Lawyers came almost exclusively from commercial families. Judges, local magistrates, keepers of prisons, government secretaries, intendants, all the world of officialdom was thronged with scions of bourgeois families. The better and older middle-class families prided themselves on their wealth, influence, and culture. They read the latest books on science and philosophy; they sometimes criticized the religious ideas of the past; and they eagerly discussed questions of constitutional law and political economy.
[Sidenote: Ambition of the Bourgeoisie]
Ambition came quite naturally with wealth and learning. The bourgeoisie wanted power and privilege commensurate with their place in business and administration. It seemed unbearable that a foppish noble whose only claims to respect were a moldy castle and a worm-eaten patent of nobility should everywhere take precedence over men of means and brains. Why should the highest social distinctions, the richest sinecures, and the posts of greatest honor in the army and at court be closed to men of ignoble birth, as if a man were any better for the possession of a high-sounding title?
Moreover, the bourgeoisie desired a more direct say in politics. In England, to be sure, the sons of rich merchants were frequently admitted to the nobility, and commercial interests were pretty well represented in Parliament. In France, however, the feudal nobility was more arrogant and exclusive, and the government less in harmony with middle-class notions. The extravagant and wasteful administration of royal money was censured by every good business man. It was argued that if France might only have bourgeois representation in a national parliament to regulate finance and to see that customs duties, trade- laws, and foreign relations were managed in accordance with business interests, then all would be well.
THE PRIVILEGED CLASSES
Thus far, in analyzing social and economic conditions in the eighteenth century, we have concerned ourselves with the lowest class, the peasants and day laborers, and with the middle class or bourgeoisie– the “Third Estate” of France and the “Commons” of Great Britain. All of these were technically unprivileged or ignoble classes. The highest place in society was reserved for the classes of the privileged, the clergy and the nobility, constituting the First and the Second Estates, respectively. And it is to these that we must now direct our attention.
[Sidenote: Small Number of “Privileged”]
The privileged classes formed a very small minority of the population. Of the 25,000,000 inhabitants of France, probably less than 150,000 were nobles and 130,000 clerics; about one out of every hundred of the people was therefore privileged.
[Sidenote: Large Number of “Privileges”]
This small upper class was distinguished from the common herd by rank, possessions, and privileges. The person of noble birth, _i.e._, the son of a noble, was esteemed to be inherently finer and better than other men; so much so that he would disdain to marry a person of the lower class. He was addressed in terms of respect–“my lord,” “your Grace”; common men saluted him as their superior. His clothes were more gorgeous than those of the plain people; on his breast glittered the badges of honorary societies, and his coach was proudly decorated with an ancestral coat of arms. His “gentle” birth admitted him to the polite society of the court and enabled him to seek preferment in church or army.
More substantial than marks of honor were the actual possessions of nobles and clergy. Each noble bequeathed to his eldest son a castle or a mansion with more or less territory from which to collect rents or feudal dues. Bishops, abbots, and archbishops received their office by election or appointment rather than by inheritance, and, being unmarried, could not transmit their stations to children. But in countries where the wealth of the Church had not been confiscated by Protestants, the “prince of the Church” often enjoyed during his lifetime magnificent possessions. The bishop of Strassburg had an annual income approximating 500,000 francs. Castles, cathedrals, palaces, rich vestments, invaluable pictures, golden chalices, rentals from broad lands, tithes from the people,–these were the property of the clergy. It is estimated that the clergy and nobility each owned one-fifth of France, and that one-third of all the land of Europe, one- half the revenue, and two-thirds the capital, were in the hands of Christian churches.
The noble families, possessing thousands of acres, and monopolizing the higher offices of church and army, were further enriched, especially in France, by presents of money from the king, by pensions, by grants of monopolies, and by high-salaried positions which entailed little or no work. “One young man was given a salary of $3600 for an office whose sole duty consisted in signing his name twice a year.”
[Sidenote: Exemption from Taxation]
With all their wealth the first two orders contributed almost nothing to lighten the financial burdens of the state. [Footnote: Exemption from taxation was often and similarly granted to bourgeois incumbents of government offices.] The Church in France claimed exemption from taxation, but made annual gifts to the king of several hundred thousand dollars, though such grants represented less than one per cent of its income. The nobles, too, considered the payment of direct taxes a disgrace to their gentle blood, and did not hesitate by trickery to evade indirect taxation, leaving the chief burdens to fall upon the lower classes, and most of all upon the peasantry.
[Sidenote: Failure of the Privileged to Perform Real Services] [Sidenote: The Higher Nobility]
All these advantages, privileges, and immunities might be looked upon as a fitting reward which medieval Europe had given to her nobles for protecting peaceable plowmen from the marauding bands then so common, and which she had bestowed upon her clergy for preserving education, for encouraging agriculture, for fostering the arts, for tending the poor, the sick, and the traveler, and for performing the offices of religion. But long before the eighteenth century the protective functions of feudal nobles had been transferred to the royal government. No longer useful, the hereditary nobility was merely burdensome, and ornamental. Such as could afford it, spent their lives in the cities or at the royal court where they rarely did anything worth while, unless it were to invent an unusually delicate compliment or to fashion a flawless sonnet. Their morals were not of the best–it was almost fashionable to be vicious–but their manners were perfect.
Meanwhile, the landed estates of these absentee lords were in charge of flint-hearted agents, whose sole mission was to squeeze money from the peasants, to make them pay well for mill, bridge, and oven, to press to the uttermost every claim which might give the absent master a larger revenue.
[Sidenote: The Country Gentry]
The poorer noble, the “country gentleman,” was hardly able to live so extravagant a life, and accordingly remained at home, sometimes making friends of the villagers, standing god-father to peasant-children, or inviting heavy-booted but light-hearted plowmen to dance in the castle courtyard. But often his life was dull enough, with rents hard to collect, and only hunting, drinking, and gossip to pass the time away.
[Sidenote: The Clergy]
A similar and sharper contrast was observable between the higher and lower clergy, in England as well as in Roman Catholic countries. Very frequently dissipated young nobles were nominated bishops or abbots: they looked upon their office as a source of revenue, but never dreamed of discharging any spiritual duties. While a Cardinal de Rohan with 2,500,000 livres a year astonished the court of France with his magnificence and luxury, many a shabby but faithful country curate, with an uncertain income of less than $150 a year, was doing his best to make both ends meet, with a little to spare for charity.
RELIGIOUS AND ECCLESIASTICAL CONDITIONS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
[Sidenote: The Catholic Church]
The great ecclesiastical organization that had dominated the middle ages was no longer the one church of Europe, but was still the most impressive. Although the Protestant Revolt of the sixteenth century had established independent denominations in the countries of northern Europe, as we have seen in Chapter IV, Roman Catholic Christianity remained the state religion of Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, Austria, the Austrian Netherlands, Bavaria, Poland, and several of the Swiss Cantons. Moreover, large sections of the population of Ireland, Bohemia, Hungary, Asia, and America professed Catholic Christianity.
Orthodox Roman Catholics held fast to their faith in dogmas and sacraments and looked for spiritual guidance, correction, and comfort to the regular and secular clergy of their Church. The “secular” hierarchy of pope, cardinals, archbishops, bishops, priests, and deacons, did not cease its pious labor “in the world”; nor was there lack of zealous souls willing to forego the pleasures of this world, that they might live holier lives as monks, nuns, or begging friars,– the “regular” clergy.
[Sidenote: Relations of the Catholic Church with Lay States]
In its relations with lay states, the Roman Catholic Church had changed more than in its internal organization. Many Protestant rulers now recognized the pope merely as an Italian prince, [Footnote: The pope, it will be remembered, ruled the central part of Italy as a temporal prince.] and head of an undesirable religious sect–Roman Catholics were either persecuted, or, as in Great Britain, deprived of political and civil rights. The Pope, on the other hand, could hardly regard as friends those who had denied the spiritual mission and confiscated the temporal possessions of the Church.
In Roman Catholic countries, too, the power of the pope had been lessened. The old dispute whether pope or king should control the appointment of bishops, abbots, and other high church officers had at last been settled in favor of the king. The pope consented to recognize royal appointees, provided they were “godly and suitable” men; in return he usually received a fee (“annate”) from the newly appointed prelate. Other taxes the pope rarely ventured to levy; but good Roman Catholics continued to pay “Peter’s Pence” as a free-will offering, and the bishops occasionally taxed themselves for his benefit. In other ways, also, the power of the Church was curtailed. Royal courts now took cognizance of the greater part of those cases which had once been within the jurisdiction of ecclesiastical courts;[Footnote: Blasphemy, contempt of religion, and heresy were, however, still matters for church courts.] the right of appeal to the Roman Curia was limited; and the lower clergy might be tried in civil courts. Finally, papal edicts were no longer published in a country without the sanction of the king. These curtailments of papal privilege were doubtless important, but they meant little or nothing to the millions of peasants and humble workmen who heard Mass, were confessed, and received the sacraments as their fathers had done before them.
[Sidenote: Surviving Privileges of the Church]
Besides their incalculable influence over the souls of men, the clergy were an important factor in the civil life of Roman Catholic countries. Education was mostly under their auspices; they conducted the hospitals and relieved the poor. Marriages were void unless solemnized in the orthodox manner, and, in the eye of the law, children born outside of Christian wedlock might not inherit property. Heretics who died unshriven, were denied the privilege of burial in Catholic cemeteries.
Of the exemption of the clergy from taxation, and of the wealth of the Church, we have already spoken, as well as of the high social rank of its prelates–a rank more in keeping with that of wealthy worldly noblemen than with that of devout “servants of the Lord.” But we have yet to mention the influence of the Church in suppressing heresy.
In theory the Roman Catholic religion was still obligatory in Catholic states. Uniformity of faith was still considered essential to political unity. Kings still promised at coronation faithfully to extirpate heretical sects. In Spain, during the first half of the eighteenth century hundreds of heretics were condemned by the Inquisition and burned at the stake; only toward the close of the century was there an abatement of religious intolerance. In France, King Louis XIV had revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685, and in the eighteenth century one might have found laws on the French statute-books directing that men who attended Protestant services should be made galley-slaves, that medical aid should be withheld from impenitent heretics, and that writers of irreligious books should suffer death. Such laws were very poorly enforced, however, and active religious persecution was dying out in France in the second half of the eighteenth century. But toleration did not mean equality; full civil and political rights were still denied the several hundred thousand Huguenots in France.
[Sidenote: Summary of Weaknesses in the Catholic Church]
The strength of the Roman Catholic Church in the eighteenth century was impaired by four circumstances: (1) the existence of bitterly antagonistic Protestant sects; (2) the growth of royal power and of the sentiment of nationalism, at the expense of papal power and of internationalism; (3) the indolence and worldliness of some of the prelates; and (4) the presence of internal dissensions. The first three circumstances should be clear from what has already been said, but a word of explanation is necessary about the fourth.
[Sidenote: Jansenism]
The first of these dissensions arose concerning the teachings of a certain Flemish bishop by the name of Cornelius Janssen (1585-1638), [Footnote: Janssen is commonly cited by the Latin version of his name– Jansenius.] whose followers, known as Jansenists, had possessed themselves of a sort of hermitage and nunnery at Port-Royal in the vicinity of Paris. Jansenism found a number of earnest disciples and able exponents, whose educational work and reforming zeal brought them into conflict with the Jesuits. The Jesuits accused the Jansenists of heresy, affirming that Janssen’s doctrine of conversion-by-the-will-of- God was in last analysis practically Calvin’s predestination. For some years the controversy raged. Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), a famous mathematician and experimenter in physics, defended the Jansenists eloquently and learnedly, but Jesuits had the ear of Louis XIV and broke up the little colony at Port-Royal. Four years later the pope issued a famous bull, called “Unigenitus” (1713), definitively condemning Jansenist doctrines as heretical; but the sect still lived on, especially in Holland, and “Unigenitus” was disliked by many orthodox Roman Catholics, who thought its condemnations too sweeping and too severe.
[Sidenote: Febronianism]
A second dispute, questioning the authority of the papacy, centered in a German theologian [Footnote: Johann Nikolaus von Hoatheim, auxiliary bishop of Trier. His famous work was published in 1763.] who wrote under the Latin name of Febronius. Febronianism was an attempted revival of the conciliar movement of the fifteenth century and closely resembled “Gallicanism,” as the movement in favor of the “Liberties of the Gallican Church” was called. These “Liberties” had been formulated in a French declaration of 1682 and involved two major claims: (1) that the pope had no right to depose or otherwise to interfere with temporal monarchs, and (2) that in spiritual affairs the general council of bishops (cumenical council) was superior to the sovereign pontiff. This twofold movement towards nationalism and representative church government was most strongly controverted by the Jesuits, who took their stand on the assertion that the pope was supreme in all things. By the opponents of the Jesuits, this looking “beyond the mountains” to the Roman Curia for ultimate authority was called Ultramontanism (beyond-the-mountainism). In almost every Catholic country of Europe the struggle between Ultramontanism and Febronianism aroused controversy, and the nature of papal supremacy remained a mooted point well into the nineteenth century.
[Sidenote: Suppression of the Jesuit Order]
Towards the close of the eighteenth century Ultramontanism received a serious though temporary setback by the suppression of the Jesuits (1773). For over two centuries members of the Society of Jesus had been famed as schoolmasters, preachers, controversialists, and missionaries; but in the eighteenth century the order became increasingly involved in temporal business; its power and wealth were abused; its political entanglements incurred the resentment of reforming royal ministers; and some of its missionaries became scandalously lax in their doctrines. The result was the suppression of the order, first in Portugal (1759), then in other countries, and finally altogether by a papal decree of 1773. [Footnote: In Russia, where the order of suppression was not enforced, the Jesuits kept their corporate organization. Subsequently, on 7 August, 1814, the entire society was restored by papal bull, and is now in a flourishing condition in many countries.]
[Sidenote: The Anglican Church]
We shall next consider the Anglican Church, whose complete independence from the papacy, it will be remembered, was established by Henry VIII of England, and whose doctrinal position had been defined in the Thirty-nine Articles of Elizabeth’s reign. It was the state Church of England, Ireland, and Wales, and had scattering adherents in Scotland and in the British colonies. Like the Roman Catholic Church in France, the Anglican Church enjoyed in the British Isles, excepting Scotland, special privileges, great wealth, and the collection of tithes from Anglicans and non-Anglicans alike. It was intensely national, independent of papal control or other foreign influence, and patriotic in spirit. It retained a hierarchical government similar to that of the Roman Catholics. As in France, the bishops were inclined to use the emoluments without doing the work of their office, while the country curates were very poor.
In its relations with others, the Anglican Church was not very liberal. In England, Protestant (Calvinistic) Dissenters had been granted liberty of worship in 1689 (Toleration Act) but still they might not hold civil, military, or political office without the special dispensation of Parliament. Baptism, registration of births and deaths, and marriage could be performed legally only by Anglican clergymen. Non-Anglicans were barred from Oxford and could take no degree at Cambridge University.
Worst of all was the lot of the Roman Catholics. In England they had practically no civil, political, or religious rights. By a law of 1700 [Footnote: Repealed in 1778, but on condition that Roman Catholics should deny the temporal power of the pope and his right to depose kings.] the Roman Catholic must abjure the Mass or lose his property, and priests celebrating Mass were liable to life imprisonment. In Ireland the communicants of the “Church of Ireland” (Anglican) constituted a very small minority, [Footnote: Even in the nineteenth century, there were only about 500,000 Anglicans out of a population of somewhat less than 6,000,000.] while the native Roman Catholics, comprising over four-fifths of the population, were not only seriously hindered from exercising their own religion, not only deprived of their political rights, not only made subservient to the economic interests of the Protestants, but actually forced to pay the tithe to support English bishops and curates, who too often lived in England, since their parishioners were all Roman Catholics.
[Sidenote: Protestant Sects in England: Baptists]
The Dissenters from the Anglican Church embraced many different creeds. We have already spoken of the Calvinistic Presbyterians and Separatists. Besides these, several new sects had appeared. The Baptist Church was a seventeenth-century off-shoot of Separatism. To Calvinistic theology and Congregational Church government, the Baptists had added a belief in adult baptism, immersion, and religious liberty.
[Sidenote: Unitarians]
A group of persons who denied the divinity of Christ, thereby departing widely from usual Protestantism as well as from traditional Catholicism, came into some prominence in the eighteenth century through secessions from the Anglican Church and through the preaching of the scientist Joseph Priestley, and gradually assumed the name of Unitarians. It was not until 1844 that the sect obtained complete religious liberty in England.
[Sidenote: Quakers]
A most remarkable departure from conventional forms was made under the leadership of George Fox, the son of a weaver, whose followers, loosely organized as the Society of Friends, were often derisively called Quakers, because they insisted that true religion was accompanied by deep emotions and quakings of spirit. Although severely persecuted, [Footnote: In 1685 as many as 1460 Quakers lay in English prisons.] the Quakers grew to be influential at home, and in the colonies, where they founded Pennsylvania (1681). Their refusal to take oaths, their quaint “thee” and “thou,” their simple and somber costumes, and their habit of sitting silent in religious meeting until the spirit should move a member to speak, made them a most picturesque body. Professional ministers and the ceremonial observance of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, they held to be forms destructive of spontaneous religion. War, they said, gave free rein to un-Christian cruelty, selfishness, and greed; and, therefore, they would not fight. They were also vigorous opponents of negro slavery.
[Sidenote: Methodists]
The Methodist movement did not come until the eighteenth century. By the year 1740, a group of earnest Oxford students had won the nickname of “Methodists” by their abstinence from frivolous amusements and their methodical cultivation of fervor, piety, and charity. Their leader, John Wesley (1703-1791), was a man of remarkable energy, rising at four in the morning, filling every moment with work, living frugally on £28 a year, visiting prisons, and exhorting his companions to piety. The Methodist leaders were very devout and orthodox Anglicans, but they were so anxious “to spread Scriptural Holiness over the land” that they preached in open fields as well as in churches. Wesley and other great orators appealed to the emotions of thousands of miners, prisoners, and ignorant weavers, and often moved them to tears. It is said that John Wesley preached more than 40,000 sermons.
The Methodist preachers gradually became estranged from the Anglican Church, established themselves as a new dissenting sect, and dropped much of the Anglican ritual. The influence of their preaching was very marked, however, and many orthodox Anglican clergymen traveled about preaching to the lower classes. This “evangelical movement” is significant because it showed that a new class of industrial workers had grown up without benefit of the church or protection of the state. We shall subsequently hear more of them in connection with the events of the Industrial Revolution.
[Sidenote: Lutheran Churches on the Continent]
In the eighteenth century, Lutheranism was the state religion of Denmark (including Norway), Sweden, and of several German states, notably Prussia, Saxony, and Brunswick. The Lutheran churches retained much of the old ritual and episcopal government. Ecclesiastical lands, however, had been secularized, and Lutheran pastors were supported by free-will offerings and state subventions. In Prussia, [Footnote: Later, in 1817, the Lutherans and Calvinists of Prussia were brought together, under royal pressure, to form the “Evangelical Church.” According to the king, this was not a fusion of the two Protestant faiths, but merely an external union.] Denmark, and Sweden the church recognized the king as its _summus episcopus_ or supreme head.
[Sidenote: Reformed Churches]
Zwinglian and Calvinistic churches were usually called “Reformed” or “Presbyterian” and represented a more radical deviation than Lutheranism from Roman Catholic theology and ritual, holding the Lord’s Supper to be but a commemorative ceremony, doing away with altar- lights, crucifixes, and set prayers, and governing themselves by synods of priests or presbyters. In the eighteenth century Presbyterianism was still the established religion of Scotland, and of the Dutch Netherlands. In France the Huguenots, in Switzerland the French- speaking Calvinists and German-speaking Zwinglians, and numerous congregations in southern Germany still represented the Reformed Church of Calvin and Zwingli. [Footnote: For the Orthodox Church in Russia, see above, pp. 122, 372, 380. Some reforms in the ritual had been introduced by a certain Nikon, a patriarch of the seventeenth century.]
[Sidenote: Growth of Skepticism. Deism]
One of the most noteworthy features of the eighteenth century was the appearance of a large number of doubters of Christianity. In the comparatively long history of the Christian Church, there had often been reformers, who attacked specific doctrines or abuses, but never before, with the possible exception of Italian humanists of the fifteenth century, [Footnote: See above, pp. 124, 182 ff.] had there been such a considerable and influential number who ventured to assail the very foundations of the Christian belief. During the last quarter of the seventeenth century, a number of English philosophers, imbued with enthusiasm for the discovery of scientific laws, went on to apply the newer scientific methods to religion. They claimed that the Bible was untrustworthy, that the dogmas and ceremonies of the churches were useless if not actually harmful, and that true religion was quite natural in man and independent of miraculous revelation. God, they asserted, had created the universe and established laws for it. He would not upset these laws to answer the foolish prayers of a puny human being. Men served God best by discounting miracles, discrediting “superstition,” and living in accordance with natural law. Just what this law was, they left largely to the common sense of each man to determine. As a result, the positive side of Deism, as the body of the new teachings was called, was lost in vagueness, and the negative side –the mere denial of orthodox Christianity–became uppermost in men’s minds.
Deism was important in several ways, especially for France, whence it was carried from England. (1) For a large part of the most intelligent and influential classes, it _destroyed reverence_ for the Church, and prepared the way for the religious experiments of the French Revolution. (2) It gave an impetus to _philosophers_ who evolved great systems and exhibited wonderful ingenuity and confidence in formulating laws which would explain the why, what, whence, and whither of human life. (3) While casting doubt on the efficacy of particular religions, it demanded _toleration_ for all. (4) Finally, it was responsible for a great increase of _indifference_ to religion. People too lazy or too ignorant to understand the philosophic basis of Deism, used the arguments of Deists in justification of their contempt for religion, and to many people disbelief and intelligence seemed to be synonymous. We have considered Deism here for its significant bearing on the religious situation in the eighteenth century. In the following section we shall see how it was part and parcel of the scientific and intellectual spirit of the times.
SCIENTIFIC AND INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENTS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
[Sidenote: Art]
As we have observed in an earlier chapter, both science and art flowered in the sixteenth century. The great men of the eighteenth century, however, devoted themselves almost exclusively to science; and the artists of the time were too insincere, too intent upon pleasing shallow-brained and frivolous courtiers, to produce much that was worth while. Great numbers of plays were written, it is true, but they were hopelessly dull imitations of classic models. Imitative and uninspired likewise were statues and paintings and poems. One merit they possessed. If a French painter lacked force and originality, he could at least portray with elegance and charm a group of fine ladies angling in an artificial pool. Elegance, indeed, redeemed the eighteenth century from imitative dullness and stupid ostentation: elegance expressed more often in perfumes, laces, and mahogany than in paint or marble. The silk-stockinged courtier accompanying his exquisitely perfect bow with a nicely worded compliment was surely as much an artist as the sculptor. Nor can one help feeling that the chairs of Louis XV were made not to sit in, but to admire; for their curving mahogany legs look too slenderly delicate, their carved and gilded backs too uncomfortable, for mere use. Chairs and fine gentlemen were alike useless, and alike elegant.
[Sidenote: The New Science]
More substantial were the achievements of eighteenth-century scientists. From philosophers of an earlier century–Francis Bacon (1561-1626) and René Descartes (1596-1650)–they learned to question everything, to seek new knowledge by actual experiment, to think boldly. You must not blindly believe in God, they said, you must first prove His existence. Or, if you will learn how the body is made, it will not do to believe what Hippocrates or any other Greek authority said about it; you must cut rabbits open and see with your own eyes where heart and lungs are hidden beneath the coat of fur. Seeing and thinking for oneself were the twin principles of the new scientific method.
[Sidenote: Isaac Newton]
The new science found many able exponents in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and of them all Sir Isaac Newton (1646-1727) was probably the most illustrious. Coming from a humble family in a little English village, Newton at an early age gave evidence of uncommon intelligence. At Cambridge University he astonished his professors and showed such great skill in mathematics that he was given a professor’s chair when only twenty-three years old.
For Descartes, Newton conceived great admiration, and, like Descartes, he applied himself to experimentation as well as to formal mathematics. His boyish ingenuity in the construction of windmills, kites, and water-clocks was now turned to more serious ends. Like other scientists of the day, he experimented with chemicals in his laboratory, and tried different combinations of lenses, prisms, and reflectors, until he was able to design a great telescope with which to observe the stars.
His greatest achievement was in astronomy. Galileo, Copernicus, and other investigators had already concluded that the earth is but one of many similar bodies moving around the sun, which in turn is only one of countless suns–for every star is a sun. Now Newton wondered what held these mighty spheres in their places in space, for they appeared to move in definite and well-regulated orbits without any visible support or prop. It is alleged that the answer to the problem was suggested by the great philosopher’s observation of a falling apple. The same invisible force that made the apple fall to the ground must, he is said to have reasoned, control the moon, sun, and stars. The earth is pulled toward the sun, as the apple to the earth, but it is also pulled toward the stars, each of which is a sun so far away that it looks to us very small. The result is that the earth neither falls to the sun nor to any one star, but moves around the sun in a regular path.
This suggestive principle by which every body in the universe is pulled towards every other body, Newton called the law of universal gravitation. Newton’s law [Footnote: It was really only a shrewd guess, but it appears to work so well that we often call it a “law.”] was expressed in a simple mathematical formula [Footnote: “The force increases directly in proportion to the product of the masses, and inversely in proportion to the square of the distance.”] by means of which physics and astronomy were developed as mathematical sciences. When a modern astronomer foretells an eclipse of the sun or discusses the course of a comet, or when a physicist informs us that he has weighed the earth, he is depending directly or indirectly upon Newton’s discovery.
[Sidenote: Experimental and Applied Science]
The brilliance of Sir Isaac Newton’s individual achievement should not obscure the fame of a host of other justly celebrated scientists and inventors. One of Newton’s contemporaries, the German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibnitz (1646-1716), elaborated a new and valuable branch of mathematics, the differential calculus, [Footnote: The credit for this achievement was also claimed by Newton.] which has proved to be of immense service in modern engineering. At the same time, the first experiments were being made with the mysterious potencies of electricity: the electrical researches of Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), his discovery that flashes of lightning are merely electrical phenomena and his invention of the lightning rod are too familiar to need repeating; the work of Luigi Galvani (1737-1798) and of Count Alessandro Volta (1745-1827), two famous Italian physicists, is less well known, but their labors contributed much to the development of physical science, and their memory is perpetuated whenever the modern electrician refers to a “voltaic cell” or when the tinsmith speaks of “galvanized” iron. In this same period, the first important advances were made in the construction of balloons, and the conquest of the air was begun. In the eighteenth century, moreover, the foundations of modern chemistry were laid by Joseph Priestley (1733- 1804), Antoine Laurent Lavoisier (1743-1794), and Henry Cavendish (1731-1810); oxygen was discovered, water was decomposed into its elements, and the nomenclature of modern chemistry had its inception. In medicine and surgery, too, pioneer work was done by John Hunter (1728-1793), a noted Scotch surgeon and anatomist, and by the Swiss professor Albrecht von Haller (1708-1777), the “father of modern physiology”; the facts which eighteenth-century physicians discovered regarding the circulation of the blood made possible more intelligent and more effective methods of treating disease; and just at the close of the eighteenth century, Edward Jenner (1749-1823), an English physician, demonstrated that the dread disease of smallpox could be prevented by vaccination. Geographical knowledge was vastly extended by the voyages of scientific explorers, like the English navigator Captain James Cook [Footnote: The Captain Cook who discovered, or rediscovered, Australia. See above, P. 340.] (1728-1779) and the French sailor Louis de Bougainville (1739-1811), in the hitherto uncharted expanses of the southern Pacific. Furthermore, since these explorers frequently brought home specimens of unfamiliar tropical animals and plants, rich material was provided for zoology and botany, which, thanks to the efforts of the Frenchman Georges de Buffon (1707-1788) and of the Swede Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778), were just becoming important sciences.
[Sidenote: Popularity of the New Science]
One reason for the rapid development of natural science in the eighteenth century was the unprecedented popularity and favor enjoyed by scientists. Kings granted large pensions to scientists; British ministers bestowed remunerative offices, and petty princes showered valuable gifts upon them. Pretentious observatories with ponderous telescopes were built, often at public expense, in almost every country of Europe. Groups of learned men were everywhere banded together in “academies” or “societies.” The “Royal Society” of London, founded in 1662, listened to reports of the latest achievements in mathematics, astronomy, and physics. The members of the _Académie française (French Academy) were granted pensions by Louis XIV and even reckoned Newton among their honorary members.
Never before had there been such interest in science, and never before had there been such opportunity to learn. Printing was now well developed; the learned societies and observatories published reports of the latest development in all branches of knowledge. Encyclopedias were gotten out professing to embody in one set of volumes the latest information relative to all the new sciences. Books were too expensive for the common person, but not so for the bourgeoisie, nor for numerous nobles. Indeed, it became quite the fashion in society to be a “savant,” a scientist, a philosopher, to dabble in chemistry, perhaps even to have a little laboratory or a telescope, and to dazzle one’s friends with one’s knowledge.
[Sidenote: The Spirit of Progress and Reform]
It seemed as if the golden age was dawning: the human mind seemed to be awakening from the slumber of centuries to con the world, to unravel the mysteries of life, and to discover the secrets of the universe. Confident that only a little thought would be necessary to free the world from vice, ignorance, and superstition, thinkers now turned boldly to attack the vexing problems of religion and morality, to criticize state, society, and church, and to point the way to a new and earthly paradise.
This tendency–this enthusiasm–has usually been styled “rationalism” because its champions sought to make everything _rational_ or reasonable. Its foremost representatives were to be found in Great Britain between 1675 and 1725. They wrote many books discussing abstruse problems of philosophy, which can have slight interest for us; but certain ideas they had of very practical importance, ideas which probably found their most notable expression in the writings of John Locke (1632-1704). Locke argued (1) that all government exists, or should exist, by consent of the governed–by a “social” contract, as it were; (2) that education should be more widespread; (3) that superstition and religious formalism should not be allowed to obscure “natural laws” and “natural religion”; and (4) that religious toleration should be granted to all but atheists.
The ideas of these English philosophers were destined to exercise a far greater influence upon France than upon England. They found delighted admirers among the nobility, ardent disciples among the bourgeoisie, and eloquent apostles in Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau.
Without a doubt, the foremost figure in the intellectual world of the eighteenth century was François Marie Arouet, or, as he called himself, François M. A. de Voltaire (1694-1778). Even from his boyhood he had been a clever hand at turning verses, and had fully appreciated his own cleverness. His businesslike father did not enjoy the boy’s poetry, especially if it was written when young François should have been studying law. But François had a mind of his own; he liked to show his cleverness in gay society and relished making witty rhymes about the foibles of public ministers or the stupidity of the prince regent of France.
His sharp tongue and sarcastic pen were a source of constant danger to Voltaire. For libel the regent had him imprisoned a year in the Bastille. Some years later he was beaten by the lackeys of an offended nobleman, again sent to the Bastille, and then exiled three years in England.
At times he was the idol of Paris, applauded by _philosophes_ and petted by the court, or again he would be a refugee from the wrath of outraged authorities. For a great part of his life he resided at Cirey in Lorraine,–with his mistress, his books, his half-finished plays, and his laboratory–for Voltaire, like all _philosophes_, had to play at science. Here he lived in constant readiness to flee over the border if the king should move against him. For a time he lived in Germany as the protégé of Frederick the Great, but he treated that irascible monarch with neither tact nor deference, and soon left Berlin to escape the king’s ire. He visited Catherine the Great of Russia. He also lived at Geneva for a while, but even there he failed to keep peace with the magistrates.
Such conflicts with established authority only increased his fame. Moreover, his three years’ exile in England (1726-1729) had been of untold value, for they had given him a first-hand acquaintance with English rationalism. He had been brought up to discount religious “superstition” but the English thinkers provided him with a well- considered philosophy. Full of enthusiasm for the ideas of his English friends, he wrote _Letters on the English_–a triumph of deistic philosophy and sarcastic criticism of church and society.
The opinions which Voltaire henceforth never ceased to expound had long been held by English rationalists. He combined (1) admiration for experimental science with (2) an exalted opinion of his own ability to reason out the “natural laws” which were supposed to lie at the base of human nature, religion, society, the state, and the universe in general. (3) He was a typical Deist, thinking that the God who had made the myriad stars of the firmament and who had promulgated eternal laws for the universe, would hardly concern Himself with the soul of Pierre or Jean. To him all priests were impostors, and sacraments meaningless mummery, and yet he would not abolish religion entirely. Voltaire often said that he believed in a “natural religion,” but never explained it fully. Indeed, he was far more interested in tearing down than in building up, and disposed rather to scoff at the priests, teachings, and practices of the Catholic Church than to convert men to a better religion. (4) Likewise in his criticism of government and of society, he confined himself mostly to bitter denunciations of contemporaneous conditions, without offering a substitute or suggesting practical reforms. His nearest approach to the practical was his admiration for English institutions, but he never explained how the “liberties” of England were to be transplanted into France.
Voltaire was not an acutely original thinker. Nevertheless, his innumerable tragedies, comedies, histories, essays, and letters established his reputation as the most versatile and accomplished writer of his age. But all the “hundred volumes” of Voltaire are rarely read today. They are clever, to be sure, witty, graceful,–but admittedly superficial. He thought that he could understand at a glance the problems upon which more earnest men had spent their lives; he would hurriedly dash off a tragedy, or in spare moments write a pretentious history. He was not always accurate but he was always clever.
Let us remember him as, at the age of eighty-four, he pays a famous visit to Paris,–a sprightly old man with wrinkled face, and with sharp old eyes peering out from either side of the long nose, beaming with pride at the flattery of his admirers, sparkling with pleasure as he makes a witty repartee. The ladies call him a most amusing old cynic. Cynic he is, and old. His life work has been scoffing. Yet Voltaire is unquestionably the intellectual dictator of Europe. His genius for satire and his fearless attacks on long-standing abuses have made him hated, and feared, and admired. He has given tone and character to the Old Régime.
[Sidenote: Diderot and the Encyclopedists]
Voltaire was not alone in the work of spreading discontent. Less famous but hardly less brilliant or versatile, was Denis Diderot (1713-1784). His great achievement was the editing of the _Encyclopedia_. The gathering of all human knowledge into one set of volumes–an encyclopedia–had been for generations a favorite idea in Europe. Diderot associated with himself the most distinguished mathematicians, astronomers, scientists, and philosophers of the time in the compilation of a work which in seventeen volumes [Footnote: Not counting pictorial supplements.] undertook to summarize the latest findings of the scholarship of the age. Over four thousand copies had been subscribed when the _Encyclopedia_ appeared in 1765. It proved to be more than a monument of learning: it was a manifesto of radicalism. Its contributors were the apostles of rationalism and deism, [Footnote: Some went even further and practically denied the existence of God.] and their criticism of current ideas about religion, society, and science won many disciples to the new ideas.
The mission of Voltaire and the Encyclopedists (as the editors of the _Encyclopedia_ are called) was to disseminate knowledge and to destroy prejudice, especially in religion. Practical specific reforms were suggested by Montesquieu, Rousseau, Beccaria, and Adam Smith.
[Sidenote: Montesquieu]
Montesquieu (1689-1755), a French lawyer-nobleman, a student of natural science, and an admirer of Newton, was the foremost writer of the eighteenth century on the practice of government. In his _Persian Letters_, and more especially in _The Spirit of the Laws_ (1748), he argued that government is a complicated matter and, to be successful, must be adapted to the peculiarities of a particular people. Theoretically he preferred a republic, and the Constitution of the United States consciously embodied many of his theories. Practically, he considered the government of Great Britain very admirable, and although it sheltered many abuses, as we shall presently see, [Footnote: See below, pp. 432 ff.] nevertheless he urged the French to pattern their political organization after it. Moderation was the motto of Montesquieu.
[Sidenote: Rousseau]
A more radical reformer was Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). In his life Rousseau was everything he should not have been. He was a failure as footman, as servant, as tutor, as secretary, as music copier, as lace maker. He wandered in Turin, Paris, Vienna, London. His immorality was notorious,–he was not faithful in love, and his children were sent to a foundling asylum. He was poverty-stricken, dishonest, discontented, and, in his last years, demented.
Yet this man, who knew so little how to live his own life, exercised a wonderful influence over the lives of others. Sordid as was his career, the man himself was not without beautiful and generous impulses. He loved nature in an age when other men simply studied nature. He liked to look at the clear blue sky, or to admire the soft green fields and shapely trees, and he was not ashamed to confess it. The emotions had been forgotten while philosophers were praising the intellect: Rousseau reminded the eighteenth century that after all it may be as sane to enjoy a sunset as to solve a problem in algebra. Rousseau possessed the soul of a poet.
To him right feeling was as important as right thinking, and in this respect he quarreled with the rationalists who claimed that common sense alone was worth while. Rousseau was a Deist–at most he believed but vaguely in a “Being, whatever He may be, Who moves the universe and orders all things.” But he detested the cold reasoning of philosophers who conceived of God as too much interested in watching the countless stars obey His eternal laws, to stoop to help puny mortals with their petty affairs. “0 great philosophers!” cried Rousseau, “How much God is obliged to you for your easy methods and for sparing Him work.” And again Rousseau warns us to “flee from those [Voltaire and his like] who, under the pretense of explaining nature, sow desolating doctrines in the hearts of men, and whose apparent skepticism is a hundred times more … dogmatic” than the teachings of priests. Rousseau was not an orthodox Christian, nor a calmly rational Deist; he simply felt that “to love God above all things, and your neighbor as yourself, is the sum of the law.”
This he reproached the philosophers with not doing. Rousseau had seen and felt the bitter suffering of the poor, and he had perceived the cynical indifference with which educated men often regarded it. Science and learning seemed to have made men only more selfish. Indeed, the ignorant peasant seemed to him humbler and more virtuous than the pompous pedant. In a passionate protest–his _Discourse on Arts and Sciences_ (1749)–Rousseau denounced learning as the badge of selfishness and corruption, for it was used to gratify the pride and childish curiosity of the rich, rather than to right the wrongs of the poor.
In fact, it were better, he contended, that all men should be savages, than that a few of the most cunning, cruel, and greedy should make slaves of the rest. His love of nature, his contempt for the silly showiness and shallow hypocrisy of eighteenth-century society, made the idea a favorite one. He loved to dream of the times [Footnote: It must be confessed that here Rousseau was dreaming of times that probably never existed.] when men were all free and equal, when nobody claimed to own the land which God had made for all, when there were no wars to kill, no taxes to oppress, no philosophers to deceive the people.
In an essay inquiring _What is the Origin of Inequality among Men_ (1753), Rousseau sought to show how vanity, greed, and selfishness had found lodgment in the hearts of these “simple savages,” how the strongest had fenced off plots of land for themselves and forced the weak to acknowledge the right of private property. This, said Rousseau, was the real origin of inequality among men, of the tyranny of the strong over the weak; and this law of private property “for the profit of a few ambitious men, subjected thenceforth all the human race to labor, servitude, and misery.”
The idea was applied to government in a treatise entitled the _Social Contract_ (1761). The “social-contract” theory was not new, but Rousseau made it famous. He taught that government, law, and social conventions were the outcome of an agreement or contract by which at the misty dawn of history all members of the state had voluntarily bound themselves. All governments exercised their power in last analysis by virtue of this social contract, by will of the people. Laws, therefore, should be submitted to popular vote. The republic is the best form of government, because it is the most sensitive to the desires of the people. This idea of “popular sovereignty,” or rule of the people, was in men’s minds when they set up a republic in France fourteen years after the death of Rousseau.
Rousseau’s cry, “Back to nature,” had still another aspect. He said that children should be allowed to follow their natural inclinations, instead of being driven to study. They should learn practical, useful things, instead of Latin and Greek. “Let them learn what they must do when they are men, and not what they must forget.”
It is hard to fix limits to the influence of Rousseau’s writings. True, both the orthodox Catholics and the philosophical Deists condemned him. But his followers were many, both bourgeois and noble. “Back to nature” became the fad of the day, and court ladies pretended to live a “natural” life and to go fishing. His theory of the social contract, his contention that wealth should not be divided among a few, his idea that the people should rule themselves,–these were to be the inspiration of the republican stage of the French Revolution, and in time to permeate all Europe.
[Sidenote: Beccaria]
The spirit of reform was applied not only against the clergy, the nobles, the monarchy, and faulty systems of law and education, but likewise to the administration of justice. Hitherto the most barbarous “punishments” had been meted out. A pickpocket might be hung for stealing a couple of shillings [Footnote: In England.]; for a more serious offense the criminal might have his bones broken and then be laid on his back on a cart-wheel, to die in agony while crowds looked on and jeered. In a book entitled _Crimes and Punishments_ (1764), an Italian marquis of the name of Beccaria (1738-1794) held that such punishments were not only brutal and barbarous, but did not serve to prevent crimes as effectually as milder sentences, promptly and surely administered. Beccaria’s ideas are the basis of our modern laws, although the death penalty still lingers in a few cases.
[Sidenote: Political Economy: the Physiocrats]
In yet another sphere–that of economics–philosophers were examining the old order of things, and asking, as ever, “Is it reasonable?” As we have repeatedly observed, most governments had long followed the mercantilist plan more or less consistently. But in the eighteenth century, François Quesnay, a bourgeois physician at the court of Louis XV, announced to his friends that mercantilism was all wrong. He became the center of a little group of philosophers who called themselves “economists,” and who taught that a nation’s wealth comes from farming and mining; that manufacturers and traders produce nothing new, but merely exchange or transport commodities. The manufacturers and merchants should therefore be untaxed and unhampered. _Laissez- faire_–“Let them do as they will.” Let the farmers pay the taxes. The foremost disciple of _laisser-faire_ in France was Turgot (1727-1781). As minister of finance under Louis XVI he attempted to abolish duties and restrictions on commerce, but his efforts were only partially successful.
[Sidenote: Adam Smith]
Meanwhile, a Scotchman, who had visited France and had known Quesnay, was conveying the new ideas across the Channel. It was Adam Smith, the “father of political economy.” Smith was quite in harmony with the philosophic spirit, with its “natural rights,” “natural religion,” and “natural laws.” He was a professor of “moral philosophy” in the University of Glasgow, and as an incident of his philosophical speculations, he thought out a system of political economy, _i.e._, the “laws” by which a nation might increase its wealth, on the lines suggested by Quesnay. Adam Smith’s famous book _The Wealth of Nations_ appeared in 1776, the year of American independence. It was a declaration of independence for industry. Let each man, each employer of labor, each seller of merchandise follow his own personal business interests without let or hindrance, for in so doing he is “led by an invisible hand” to promote the good of all. Let the government abolish all monopolies, [Footnote: He was somewhat inconsistent in approving joint-stock monopolies and shipping regulations.] all restrictions on trade, all customs duties, all burdens on industry. Thus only can the true wealth of a nation be promoted.
Smith’s opinions were so plausible and his arguments so ingenious that his doctrines steadily gained in influence, and in the first half of the nineteenth century pretty generally triumphed. In actual practice the abolition of restrictions on industry was destined to give free rein to the avarice and cruelty of the most selfish employers, to enrich the bourgeoisie, and to leave the lower classes more miserable than ever. The “Wealth of Nations” was to be the wealth of the bourgeoisie. But meanwhile, it was to destroy mercantilism.
[Sidenote: Conclusion]
We have now completed our survey of the social, religious, and intellectual conditions in the Europe of the eighteenth century. Before our eyes have passed poverty-stricken peasants plowing their fields, prosperous merchants who demand power, frivolous nobles squandering their lives and fortunes, worldly bishops neglecting their duties, humble priests remaining faithful, sober Quakers refusing to fight, earnest astronomers who search the skies, sarcastic Deists who scoff at priests, and bourgeois philosophers who urge reform. The procession is not quite done. Last of all come the kings in their royal ermine and ministers in robes of state. To them we dedicate a new chapter. It will be the last occasion on which kings will merit such detailed attention.
ADDITIONAL READING
GENERAL SOCIAL CONDITIONS IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY EUROPE. Brief outlines: J. H. Robinson and C. A. Beard, _The Development of Modern Europe_, Vol. I (1907), ch. viii, ix; H. E. Bourne, _The Revolutionary Period in Europe, 1763-1815_ (1914), ch. i, iii; Clive Day, _History of Commerce_ (1907). More detailed accounts: _Cambridge Modern History_, Vol. VI; and _Histoire générale_, Vol. VII, ch. xiii-xvii. The most scholarly and exhaustive study of social conditions is that of Maxime Kovalevsky, _Die oekonomische Entwicklung Europas bis zum Beginn der kapitalistischen Wirtschaftsform_, trans. into German from Russian by Leo Motzkin, 7 vols. (1901-1914), especially Vols. VI, VII.
FRENCH SOCIETY ON THE EVE OF THE REVOLUTION. Shailer Mathews, _The French Revolution_ (reprint, 1912), ch. i-v, a clear summary; E. J. Lowell, _The Eve of the French Revolution_ (1892), probably the best introduction in English; Alexis de Tocqueville, _The State of Society in France before the Revolution of 1789_, Eng. trans. by Henry Reeve, 3d ed. (1888), a brilliant and justly famous work; H. A. Taine, _The Ancient Régime_, Eng. trans. by John Durand, new rev. ed. (1896), another very celebrated work, better on the literary and philosophical aspects of the Old Régime than on the economic; Albert Sorel, _L’Europe et la Révolution française, Vol. I (1885) of this monumental history is an able presentation of French social conditions in the eighteenth century; Arthur Young, _Travels in France, 1787, 1788, and 1789_, valuable observations of a contemporary English gentleman-farmer on conditions in France, published in several editions, notably in the Bohn Library. Detailed treatises in French: _Histoire de France_, Vol. IX, Part I (1910), _Règne de Louis XVI, 1774-1789_, by H. Carré, P. Sagnac, and E. Lavisse, especially livres III, IV; Emile Levasseur, _Histoire des classes ouvrières et de l’industrie en France avant 1789_, Vol. II (1901), livre VII; Maxime Kovalevsky, _La France économique et sociale à la veille de la Révolution_, 2 vols. (1909- 1911), an admirable study of common life both rural and urban; Georges d’Avenel, _Histoire économique de la propriété, des salaires, etc., 1200-1800_, 6 vols. (1894-1912), elaborate treatments of such topics as money, land, salaries, the wealthy and bourgeois classes, the growth of private expenses, etc.; Albert Babeau’s careful monographs on many phases of the Old Régime, such as _Les voyageurs en France_ (1885), _La ville_ (1884), _La vie rurale_ (1885), _Les artisans et les domestiques_ (1886), _Les bourgeois_ (1886), _La vie militaire_, 2 vols. (1890), _Le village_ (1891), _La province_, 2 vols. (1894); Nicolas Karéiev, _Les paysans et la question paysanne en France dans le dernier quart du XVIIIe siècle_, Fr. trans. (1899); Edmé Champion, _La France d’après les cahiers de 1789_ (1897). Also see books listed under THE FRENCH MONARCHY, 1743-1789, p. 463, below.
ENGLISH SOCIETY IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. Brief surveys: A. L. Cross, _History of England and Greater Britain_ (1914), ch. xliv; G. T. Warner, _Landmarks in English Industrial History_, 11th ed. (1912), ch. xiv; H. de B. Gibbins, _Industry in England_, 6th ed. (1910), ch. xvii- xx; G. H. Perris, _The Industrial History of Modern England_ (1914), ch. i. Fuller treatments: H. D. Traill and J. S. Mann (editors), _Social England_, illus. ed., 6 vols. in 12 (1909), ch. xvi-xviii; W. G. Sydney, _England and the English in the Eighteenth Century_, 2 vols. (1891); E. S. Roscoe, _The English Scene in the Eighteenth Century_ (1912); Sir H. T. Wood, _Industrial England in the Middle of the Eighteenth Century_ (1910); Sidney and Beatrice Webb, _English Local Government from the Revolution to the Municipal Corporations Act, 1688- 1835, The Manor and the Borough_, 2 parts (1908), and _The Story of the King’s Highway_ (1913); W. E. H. Lecky, _A History of England in the Eighteenth Century_, London ed., 7 vols. (1907), particularly full on social and intellectual conditions. Special studies and monographs: A. Andréadès, _History of the Bank of England_, Eng. trans. by Christabel Meredith (1909), an authoritative review by a Greek scholar; Sir Walter Besant, _London in the Eighteenth Century_ (1903), charmingly written but not always trustworthy; J. L. and B. Hammond, _The Village Labourer, 1760-1832_ (1911); J. E. Thorold Rogers, _History of Agriculture and Prices in England_, 7 vols. (1866-1902), a monumental work, of which Vol. VII deals with the eighteenth century; R. E. Prothero, _English Farming Past and Present_ (1912); E. C. K. Gonner, _Common Land and Inclosure_ (1912); A. H. Johnson, _The Disappearance of the Small Landowner_ (1909); Wilhelm Hasbach, _A History of the English Agricultural Labourer_, new ed. trans. into English by Ruth Kenyon (1908); R. M. Gamier, _History of the English Landed Interest, its Customs, Laws and Agriculture_, 2 vols. (1892-1893), and, by the same author, _Annals of the British Peasantry_ (1895). For interesting contemporary accounts of English agriculture in the eighteenth century, see the journals of Arthur Young, _A Six Weeks’ Tour through the Southern Counties_ (1768), _A Six Months’ Tour through the North of England_, 4 vols. (1791), and _The Farmer’s Tour through the East of England_, 4 vols. (1791). Also see books listed under THE BRITISH MONARCHY, 1760-1800, pp. 461 f., below.
SPECIAL STUDIES OF SOCIAL CONDITIONS IN OTHER COUNTRIES. For Scotland: H. G. Graham, _Social Life in Scotland in the Eighteenth Century_, 2 vols. (1900). For Hungary: Henry Marczali, _Hungary in the Eighteenth Century_ (1910). For Russia: James Mavor, _An Economic History of Russia_, Vol. I (1914), Book II, ch. i-iv. For Spain: Georges Desdevises du Dezert, _L’Espagne de l’ancien régime_, 3 vols. (1897-1904). For the Germanies: Karl Biedermann, _Deutschland im achtsehnten Jahrhundert_, 2 vols. in 3 (1867-1880).
ECCLESIASTICAL AFFAIRS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. The general histories of Christianity, cited in the bibliography to Chapter IV, above, should be consulted. Additional information can be gathered from the following. On the Catholic Church: William Barry, _The Papacy and Modern Times_ (1911), ch. v; _Cambridge Modern History_, Vol. V (1908), ch. iv, on Gallicanism and Jansenism, by Viscount St. Cyres, a vigorous opponent of Ultramontanism; _Histoire générale_, Vol. VI, ch. vi, and Vol. VII, ch. xvii, both by Émile Chénon; Joseph de Maistre, _Du pape_, 24th ed. (1876), and _De l’église gallicane_, most celebrated treatments of Gallicanism from the standpoint of an Ultramontane and orthodox Roman Catholic; C. A. Sainte-Beuve, _Port-Royal_, 2d ed., 5 vols. (1860), the best literary account of Jansenism; R. B. C. Graham, _A Vanished Arcadia: being some account of the Jesuits in Paraguay, 1607 to 1767_ (1901); Paul de Crousaz-Crétet, _L’église et l’état, ou les deux puissances au XVIIIe siècle, 1713-1789_ (1893), on the relations of church and state; Léon Mention, _Documents relatifs aux rapports du clergé avec la royauté de 1682 à 1789_, 2 vols. (1893- 1903), containing many important documents. On Protestantism in England: H. O. Wakeman, _An Introduction to the History of the Church of England_, 5th ed. (1898), ch. xviii, xix; J. H. Overton and Frederic Relton, _A History of the Church of England, 1714-1800_ (1906), being Vol. VII of a comprehensive work ed. by W. R. W. Stephens and William Hunt; John Stoughton, _Religion under Queen Anne and the Georges, 1702- 1800_, 2 vols. (1878); H. W. Clark, _History of English Nonconformity_, 2 vols. (1911-1913), especially Vol. II, Book IV, ch. i, ii, on Methodism; W. C. Braithwaite, _The Beginnings of Quakerism_ (1912); F. J. Snell, _Wesley and Methodism_ (1900); and T. E. Thorpe, _Joseph Priestley_ (1906).
DEISM AND THE SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. _Cambridge Modern History_, Vol. V, ch. xxiii, and Vol. VIII, ch. i; _Histoire générale_, Vol. VI, ch. x, and Vol. VII, ch. xv, two excellent chapters on natural science, 1648-1788, by Paul Tannery; Sir Oliver Lodge, _Pioneers of Science_ (1893); Sir Leslie Stephen, _History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century_, 3d ed., 2 vols. (1902), an interesting account of the English Deists and of the new political and economic theorists, and, by the same author, _English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century_ (1909); Edmund Gosse, _A History of Eighteenth Century Literature, 1660-1780_ (1911); J. M. Robertson, _A Short History of Free Thought_, 3d rev. ed., 2 vols. (1915), a sympathetic treatment of deism and rationalism; C. S. Devas, _The Key to the World’s Progress_ (1906), suggestive criticism of the thought of the eighteenth century from the standpoint of a well- informed Roman Catholic. On the most celebrated French philosophers of the time, see the entertaining and enthusiastic biographies by John (Viscount) Morley, _Rousseau_, 2 vols. (1873), _Diderot and the Encyclopædists_, 2 vols. (1891), _Voltaire_ (1903), and the essays on Turgot, etc., scattered throughout his _Critical Miscellanies_, 4 vols. (1892-1908). There is a convenient little biography of _Montesquieu_ by Albert Sorel, Eng. trans. by Gustave Masson (1887), and useful monographs by J. C. Collins, _Bolingbroke, a Historical Study; and Voltaire in England_ (1886). Such epochal works as Montesquieu’s _Spirit of the Laws_, Voltaire’s _Letters on the English_ and _Philosophical Dictionary_, and Rousseau’s _Social Contract_ and _Émile_, are readily procurable in English. On the rise of political economy: Henry Higgs, _The Physiocrats_ (1897); Charles Gide and Charles Rist, _A History of Economic Doctrines from the Time of the Physiocrats_, Eng. trans. (1915), Book I, ch. i, ii; L. L. Price, _A Short History of Political Economy in England from Adam Smith to Arnold Toynbee_, 7th ed. (1911); R. B. (Viscount) Haldane, _Life of Adam Smith_ (1887) in the “Great Writers” Series; John Rae, _Life of Adam Smith_ (1895), containing copious extracts from Smith’s letters and papers; Georges Weulersse, _Le mouvement physiocratique en France de 1756 à 1770_, 2 vols. (1910), scholarly and elaborate. There is a two- volume edition of Adam Smith’s _Wealth of Nations_ (1910) in “Everyman’s Library,” with an admirable introductory essay by E. R. A. Seligman.
CHAPTER XIV
EUROPEAN GOVERNMENTS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
[Sidenote: General]
In the foregoing chapter we have seen how the social structure of the eighteenth century rested on injustice, poverty, and suffering; we have listened to the complaints of the bourgeoisie and to their demands for reform. Philosophers might plead for reform, but only the king could grant it. For in him were vested all powers of government: he was the absolute monarch.
Such was the situation in virtually every important country in Europe. In Great Britain alone were the people even reputed to have a share in the government, and to Great Britain the Voltaires and the Montesquieus of the Continent turned for a model in politics. Let us join them in considering the peculiar organization of the British monarchy, and then we shall observe how the other governments of Europe met the demand for reform.
THE BRITISH MONARCHY
[Sidenote: England. Scotland]
In the eighteenth century, what was the British monarchy? It was, first of all, the government of England (which included Wales). Secondly, it embraced Scotland, for since 1603 Scotland and England had been subject to the same king, and in 1707 by the Act of Union the two kingdoms had been united to form the monarchy of “Great Britain,” with a common king and a common Parliament.
[Sidenote: Great Britain]
The British monarchy was properly, then, the government of united England (Wales) and Scotland. But in addition the crown had numerous subordinate possessions: the royal colonies, [Footnote: The royal colonies were, in 1800: Newfoundland (1583), Barbados (1605), Bermudas (1609), Gambia (c. 1618), St. Christopher (1623), Nevis (1628), Montserrat (1632), Antigua (1632), Honduras (1638), St. Lucia (1638), Gold Coast (c. 1650), St. Helena (1651), Jamaica (1655), Bahamas (1666), Virgin Islands (1666), Gibraltar (1704), Hudson Bay Territory (1713), Nova Scotia (1713), New Brunswick (1713), Quebec, Ontario, and Prince Edward Island (1763), Dominica (17633), St. Vincent (1763), Grenada (1763), Tobago (1763), Falkland (1765), Pitcairn (1780), Straits Settlements (1786 ff.), Sierra Leone (1787), New South Wales (1788), Ceylon (1795), Trinidad (1797), and, under the East India Company, Madras (1639), Bombay (1661), and Bengal (1633-1765).] and Ireland. For these dependencies the home government appointed governors, made laws, and levied taxes, in theory at least; but they were possessions rather than integral parts of the monarchy.
[Sidenote: Ireland]
A few words should be said in explanation of the political status of Ireland under the British crown. The English kings had begun their conquests in that island as far back as the twelfth century; and by dint of much bloodshed and many efforts they had long maintained possession. In the seventeenth century Oliver Cromwell had put down a bitter revolt and had encouraged Protestant English and Scotch immigrants to settle in the north and east, taking the land from the native Irishmen, who were Roman Catholics. An Irish parliament had existed since the middle ages, but from the close of the fifteenth century its acts to be valid required the approval of the English Privy Council, and from the middle of the seventeenth century Roman Catholics were debarred from it. In 1782, however, while Great Britain was engaged in the War of American Independence, the Protestants in Ireland secured the right to make most of their own laws, and ten years later the Catholic disqualifications were removed. From 1782 to 1801, Ireland retained this half-way independence; but a Protestant minority actually controlled the Irish Parliament, incurring the dislike of the Roman Catholic Irish and of the British government, so that in 1800, following an Irish revolt, an Act of Union was passed, according to which, in 1801, Great Britain and Ireland became the United Kingdom. Thenceforth Ireland was represented by 28 peers and 100 Commoners in the Parliament of the United Kingdom (often called, carelessly, the British Parliament).
It may be said, then, that except during the brief period of Irish semi-independence (1782-1801), the British Parliament governed not only Great Britain, but Ireland and the crown colonies as well. How the British monarchy was governed, we have now to discover.
[Sidenote: The King and his Nominal Powers]
In theory the king was still the ruler of his kingdom. In his name all laws were made, treaties sealed, governmental officials appointed. Like other monarchs, he had his “Privy Councilors” to advise him, and ministers (Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Secretaries of State, the Lord Chancellor, etc.) to supervise various details of central administration. But this was largely a matter of form. In fact, the kings of Great Britain had lost most of their power, and retained only their dignity; they were becoming figureheads.
[Sidenote: The British Constitution]
Ever since the signing of _Magna Carta_, back in 1215, the English people had been exacting from their sovereigns written promises by which the crown surrendered certain powers. Greatest progress in this direction had been made amid those stirring scenes of the seventeenth century which have been described already in the chapter on the Triumph of Parliamentary Government in England. In addition to formal documents, there had been slowly evolved a body of customs and usages, which were almost as sacred and binding as if they had been inscribed on parchment. Taken together, these written and customary limitations on royal authority were called the “British Constitution.”
[Sidenote: Limitations on the Actual Powers of the King]
This Constitution limited the king’s power in four important ways. (1) It deprived him of the right to levy taxes. For his household expenses he was now granted an allowance, called the Civil List. William III, for instance, was allowed £700,000 pounds a year. (2) The king had no right either to make laws on his own responsibility or to prevent laws being made against his will. The sovereign’s prerogative to veto Parliament’s bills still existed in theory, but was not exercised after the reign of Queen Anne. (3) The king had lost control of the judicial system (_i.e._, the courts): he could not remove judges even if they gave decisions unfavorable to him; and the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679 provided that any one thrown into prison should be told why, and given a fair legal trial. (4) The king could not maintain a standing army without consent of Parliament. These restrictions made Great Britain a “limited,” rather than an “absolute,” monarchy.
[Sidenote: Parliament]
The powers taken from the king were now exercised by Parliament. The constitutional conflict of the seventeenth century had left Parliament not only in enjoyment of freedom of speech for its members but with full power to levy taxes, to make laws, to remove or retain judges, and essentially to determine the policy of the government in war and in peace. Parliament had even taken upon itself on one celebrated occasion (1689) to deprive a monarch of his “divine right” to rule, to establish a new sovereign, and to decree that never again should Great Britain have a king of the Roman Catholic faith.
French philosophers who saw so much power vested in a representative body could not be too loud in their praise of “English liberty.” Had they investigated more closely, these same observers might have learned to their surprise that Parliament represented the people of Great Britain only in name.
[Sidenote: Undemocratic Character of Parliament]
As we have seen in an earlier chapter [Footnote: See above, pp. 265 f.], Parliament consisted of two legislative assemblies or “Houses,” neither one of which could make laws without the consent of the other. One of these houses, the House of Lords, was frankly aristocratic and undemocratic. Its members were the “lords spiritual”–rich and influential bishops of the Anglican Church,–and the “lords temporal,” or peers, haughty descendants of the ancient feudal nobles or haughtier heirs of millionaires recently ennobled by the king. [Footnote: A peer was technically a titled noble who possessed an hereditary seat in the House of Lords. George III created many peers: at his death there were over 300 in all.] These proud gentlemen were mainly landlords, and as a class they were almost as selfish and undemocratic as the courtiers of France.
But, the French philosopher replies, the representatives of the people are found in the lower house, the House of Commons; the peers merely give stability to the government. Let us see.
One thing at least is certain, that in the eighteenth century the majority of the people of Great Britain had no voice in choosing their “representatives.” In the country, the “knights of the shire” were supposedly elected, two for each shire or county. But a man could not vote unless he had an estate worth an annual rent of forty shillings, and, since the same amount of money would then buy a good deal more than nowadays, forty shillings was a fairly large sum. Persons who could vote were often afraid to vote independently, and frequently they sold their vote to a rich noble, so that many “knights of the shire” were practically named by the landed aristocracy, the wealthy and titled landlords.
Matters were even worse in the towns, or “boroughs.” By no means all of the towns had representation. Moreover, for the towns that did choose their two members to sit in the House of Commons, no method of election was prescribed by law; but each borough followed its own custom. In one town the aristocratic municipal corporation would choose the representatives; in another place the gilds would control the election; and in yet another city there might be a few so-called “freemen” (of course everybody was free,–“freeman” was a technical term for a member of the town corporation) who had the right to vote, and sold their votes regularly for about £5 apiece. In general the town representatives were named by a few well-to-do politicians, while the common ‘prentices and journeymen worked uninterruptedly at their benches. It has been estimated that fewer than 1500 persons controlled a majority in the House of Commons.
In many places a nobleman or a clique of townsmen appointed their candidates without even the formality of an election. In other places, where rival influences clashed, bribery would decide the day. For in contested elections, the voting lasted forty days, during which time the price of votes might rise to £25 or more. Votes might be purchased with safety, too, for voting was public and any one might learn from the poll-book how each man had voted. Not infrequently it cost several thousand pounds to carry such an election.
[Sidenote: “Rotten Boroughs”]
We may summarize these evils by saying that the peasants and artisans generally were not allowed to vote, and that the methods of election gave rise to corruption. But this was not all. There was neither rhyme nor reason to be found in the distribution of representation between different sections of the country. Old Sarum had once been a prosperous village and had been accorded representation, but after the village had disappeared, leaving to view but a lonely hill, no one in England could have told why two members should still sit for Old Sarum. Nor, for that matter, could there have been much need of representation in Parliament for the sea-coast town of Dunwich. Long ago the coast had sunk and the salt-sea waves now washed the remains of a ruined town. Bosseney in Cornwall was a hamlet of three cottages, but its citizens were entitled to send two men to Parliament.
While these decayed towns and “rotten boroughs” continued to enjoy representation, populous and opulent cities like Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, and Sheffield were ignored. They had grown with the growth of industry, while the older towns had declined. Yet Parliamentary representation underwent no change from the days of Charles II to the third decade of the nineteenth century. Thus Parliament in the eighteenth century represented neither the different classes of society nor the masses of population. Politics was a gentleman’s game. The nobleman who sat in the upper house had his dummies in the lower chamber. A certain Sir James Lowther had nine protégés in the lower house, who were commonly called “Lowther’s Ninepins.” A distinguished statesman of the time described the position of such a protégé: “He is sent here by the lord of this or the duke of that, and if he does not obey the instructions which he receives, he is held to be a dishonest man.”
[Sidenote: Parliamentary Bribery and Corruption]
Under conditions such as these it is not hard to understand how seats in Parliament were bought and sold like boxes at the opera or seats in a stock-exchange. Nor is it surprising that after having paid a small fortune for the privilege of representing the people, the worldly-wise Commoner should be willing to indemnify himself by accepting bribes, or, if perchance his tender conscience forbade monetary bribes, by accepting a government post with fat salary and few duties except to vote with the government.
[Sidenote: The Cabinet]
For many years (1714-1761) the arts of corruption were practiced with astonishing success by a group of clever Whig politicians. As has been noticed in an earlier chapter,[Footnote: See above, pp. 291 f.] it was to their most conspicuous leader, Sir Robert Walpole, that the first two Georges intrusted the conduct of affairs; and Walpole filled the important offices of state with his Whig friends. Likewise it has been noticed [Footnote: See above, p. 290.] that during the same period the idea of the cabinet system became more firmly fixed. Just as Walpole secured the appointment of his friends to the high offices of state, so subsequent statesmen put their supporters in office. The practice was not yet rigid, but it was customary for a dozen or so of the leaders of the faction in power to hold “cabinet” meetings, in which they decided in advance what measures should be presented to Parliament. If a measure indorsed by the cabinet should be defeated by the Commons, the leader of the party would normally resign, and the ministers he had appointed would follow his example. In other words, the cabinet acted in concert and resigned as a whole.
If the affairs of the government were all carried on by the cabinet, and if the cabinet depended for its support on the majority in the House of Commons, what remained for the king to do? Obviously, very little!
[Sidenote: British Government under George III]
George I and George II had not been averse from cabinet-government: it was easy and convenient. But George III (1760-1820) was determined to make his authority felt. He wished to preside at cabinet meetings; he outbribed the Whigs; and he repeatedly asked his ministers to resign because he disliked their policies.
Besides the friends he purchased, George III possessed a considerable number of enthusiastic and conscientious supporters. The country squires and clergy who believed in the Anglican Church and looked with distrust upon the power of corrupt Whig politicians in Parliament, were quite willing that a painstaking and gentlemanly monarch should do his own ruling. Such persons formed the backbone of the Tory party and sometimes called themselves the “king’s friends.” With their support and by means of a liberal use of patronage, George III was able to keep Lord North, a minister after his own heart, in power twelve years (1770-1782). But as we have learned, [Footnote: See above, pp. 332 ff.] the War of American Independence caused the downfall of Lord North, and for the next year or two, politics were in confusion. During 1782-1783 the old Whig and Tory parties [Footnote: See above, pp. 285 f.] were sadly broken up, and a new element was unmistakably infused into party- warfare by the spirit of reform.
[Sidenote: Need and Demand for Reform]
Surely, if ever a country needed reform, it was Great Britain in 1783. The country was filled with paupers maintained by the taxes; poor people might be shut up in workhouses and see their children carted off to factories; sailors were kidnapped for the royal navy; the farmhand was practically bound to the soil like a serf; over two hundred offenses, such as stealing a shilling or cutting down an apple tree, were punishable by death; religious intolerance flourished–Quakers were imprisoned and Roman Catholics were debarred from office and Parliament. And Ireland was being ruined by the selfish and obstinate minority which controlled its parliament.
But about these things English “reformers” were not much concerned. A few altruistic souls decried the traffic in black slaves, but that evil was quite far from English shores. The reform movement was chiefly directed against parliamentary corruption and received its support from the small country gentlemen who hated the great Whig owners of “pocket- boroughs,” [Footnote: Boroughs whose members were named by a political “patron.”] and from the lower and newer ranks of the bourgeoisie. For the small shop-keepers and tradesmen, and especially the rich manufacturers in new industrial towns like Birmingham, felt that Parliament did not represent their interests, and they set up a cry for pure politics and reformed representation.
[Sidenote: Wilkes]
The spirit of reform spread rapidly. In the ‘sixties of the eighteenth century, John Wilkes, a squint-eyed and immoral but very persuasive editor, had raised a hubbub of reform talk. He had criticized the policy of George III, had been elected to Parliament, and, when the House of Commons expelled him, had insisted upon the right of the people to elect him, regardless of the will of the House. His admirers –and he had many–shouted for “Wilkes and Liberty,” elected him Lord Mayor of London, and enabled him to carry his point.
The founding of four newspapers furthered the reform movement. They took it upon themselves to report parliamentary debates, and along with information they spread discontent. Their activity was somewhat checked, however, by the operation of the old laws which punished libelous attacks on the king with imprisonment or exile, and also by a stamp duty of 2-1/2d. a sheet (1789).
[Sidenote: Charles James Fox]
Under the new influence a number of Whigs became advocates of reform. George III had outdone them at corruption; they now sought to reëstablish their own power and Parliament’s by advocating reform. Of these Whigs, Charles James Fox (1749-1806) was the most prominent. Fox had been taught to gamble by his father and took to it readily. Cards and horse-racing kept him in constant bankruptcy; many of his nights were spent in debauchery and his mornings in bed; and his close association with the rakish heir to the throne was the scandal of London. In spite of his eloquence and ability, the loose manner of his life militated against the success of Fox as a reformer. His friends knew him to be a free-hearted, impulsive sympathizer with all who were oppressed, and they entertained no doubt of his sincere wish to bring about parliamentary reform, complete religious toleration, and the abolition of the slave trade. But strangers could not easily reconcile his private life with his public words, and were antagonized by his frequent lack of political tact.
[Sidenote: The Program of Reform]
Despite drawbacks Fox furthered the cause of reform to a considerable extent. He it was who presided over a great mass meeting, held under the auspices of a reform club, at which meeting was drawn up a program of liberal reform, a program which was to be the battle-cry of British political radicals for several generations. It comprised six demands: (1) Votes for all adult males, (2) each district to have representation proportionate to its population, (3) payment of the members of Parliament so as to enable poor men to accept election, (4) abolition of the property qualifications for members of Parliament, (5) adoption of the secret ballot, and (6) Parliaments to be elected annually.
[Sidenote: William Pitt the Younger]
Such reform seemed less likely of accomplishment by Fox than by a younger statesman, William Pitt (1759-1806), second son of the famous earl of Chatham. When but seven years old, Pitt had said: “I want to speak in the House of Commons like papa.” Throughout his boyhood and youth he had kept this ambition constantly before him; he had studied, practiced oratory, and learned the arts of debate. At the age of twenty-one, he was a tall, slender, and sickly youth, with sonorous voice, devouring ambition, and sublime self-confidence. He secured a seat in the Commons as one of Sir James Lowther’s “ninepins,” and speedily won the respect of the House. He was the youngest and most promising of the politicians of the day. At the outset he was a Whig.
[Sidenote: The “New Tories”]
By a combination of circumstances young Pitt was enabled to form an essentially new political party–the “New Tories.” By his scrupulous honesty and earnest advocacy of parliamentary reform, he won to his side the unrepresented bourgeoisie and the opponents of “bossism.” On the other hand, by accepting from King George III an appointment as chief minister, and holding the position in spite of a temporarily hostile majority in the House of Commons, Pitt won the respect of the Tory country squires and the clergy, who stood for the king against Parliament. And finally, being quite moral himself (if chronic indulgence in port wine be excepted), and supporting a notoriously virtuous king against corrupt politicians and against the gambling Fox, Pitt became an idol of all lovers of “respectability.”
In the parliamentary elections of 1784 Pitt won a great victory. In that year he was prime minister with loyal majorities in both Houses of Parliament, with royal favor, and with the support of popular enthusiasm. He was feasted in Grocers’ Hall in London; the shopkeepers of the Strand illuminated their dwellings in his honor; and crowds cheered his carriage.
Reform seemed to be within sight. The horrors of the slave trade were mitigated, and greater freedom was given the press. Bills were introduced to abolish the representation of “rotten” boroughs and to grant representation to the newer towns.
[Sidenote: Halt of Reform in Great Britain]
It can hardly be doubted that Pitt would have gone further had not affairs in France–the French Revolution–alarmed him at the critical time and caused him fear a similar outbreak in England. [Footnote: For the effect of the French Revolution upon England, see pp. 494 f., 504.] The government and upper classes of Great Britain at once abandoned their roles as reformers, and set themselves sternly to repress anything that might savor of revolution.
[Sidenote: Conclusion]
Two important conclusions may now be drawn from our study of the British government in the eighteenth century. In the first place, despite the admiration with which the French philosophers regarded the British monarchy as a model of political liberty and freedom, it was in fact both corrupt and oppressive. Secondly, the spirit of reform seemed for a time as active and as promising in Great Britain as in France, but from the island kingdom it was frightened away by the tumult of revolution across the Channel.
THE ENLIGHTENED DESPOTS
The spirit of progress and reform had slowly made itself felt in Great Britain through popular agitation and in Parliament. On the Continent it naturally took a different turn, for there government certainly was not by Parliaments, but by sovereigns “by the Grace of God.” In France, Prussia, Austria, Spain, and Russia, therefore, the question was always, “Will his Majesty be cruel, extravagant, and unprogressive; or will he prove himself an able and liberal-minded monarch?”
[Sidenote: The Era of Benevolent Despotism on the Continent]
It happened during the eighteenth century that most of the Continental rulers were of this latter sort–conscientious and well-meaning. On the thrones of Austria, Prussia, Spain, Portugal, Tuscany, Sardinia, Bavaria, and Sweden sat men of extraordinary ability, who sought rather the welfare of their country than careless personal pleasure.
These were the benevolent despots. They were despots, absolute rulers, countenancing no attempt to diminish royal authority, believing in government by one strong hand rather than by the democratic many. But with despotism they combined benevolence; they were anxious for the glory of their nation, and no less solicitous for the happiness and prosperity of their people. Thus the development of absolute monarchy and the rationalism of the eighteenth century united to produce the benevolent despot. For this reason the term “enlightened” (i.e., philosophical) despot is frequently applied to these autocrats who attempted to rule in the light of reason.
[Sidenote: Frederick the Great of Prussia, 1740-1786]
One of the most successful of the enlightened despots was Frederick II (the Great) of Prussia. In our chapter on the Germanies, [Footnote: See above, ch. xi.] we have seen how he fought all Europe to gain prestige and power for Prussia; we shall now see how he endeavored to apply scientific methods to the government of his own country.
With the major intellectual interests of the eighteenth century, Frederick II became acquainted quite naturally. As a boy he had been fond of reading French plays, had learned Latin against his father’s will, had filled his mind with the ideas of deistic philosophers, and had seemed likely to become a dreamer instead of a ruler. But the dogged determination of his father, King Frederick William I, to make something out of Frederick besides a flute-playing, poetizing philosopher, had resulted in familiarizing him with elaborate financial reports and monotonous minutes of tiresome official transactions. Young Frederick, however, learned to like the details of administration and when he came to the throne in 1740 he was not only enlightened but industrious.
The young king had a clear conception of his duties, and even wrote a book in French about the theory of government. “The prince,” he said, “is to the nation he governs what the head is to the man; it is his duty to see, think, and act for the whole community, that he may procure it every advantage of which it is capable.” “The monarch is not the absolute master, but only the first servant of the state.” Frederick was indeed the first servant of Prussia, rising at five in the morning, working on official business until eleven o’clock, and spending the afternoon at committee meetings or army reviews.
He set about laboriously to make Prussia the best and most governed